Carroll Linda - DUEL FOR THE CROWN: affirmed, alydar, and racings greatest rivalry

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Gallery Books

A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Copyright 2014 by Linda Carroll and David Rosner

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Gallery Books hardcover edition April 2014

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Interior design by Davina Mock

Photographs by Bob Coglianese, New York Racing Association, Getty Images, Associate Press Images

Jacket design by Janet Perr

Front cover photography by Horsephotos.com

Author photograph by Diane Zlogar Nafis

copy of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4767-3320-3

ISBN 978-1-4767-3322-7 (ebook)

F OR A FFIRMED , A LYDAR, AND ALL THE OTHER NOBLE T HOROUGHBREDS WHO HAVE RACED INTO OUR HEARTS

I N THE THREE centuries since the noble Thoroughbred flashed into our consciousness, we have marveled at the majesty of fabled racehorses from Eclipse to Man o War to Secretariat. But more than any singular superhorse, what really captivates us and captures our imagination are the match races and the matchless rivalries, for nothing tests the heart of a champion more than a worthy foe whose own pluck brings out the best in both. By that measure, no twinned rivals could ever surpass this peerless pair of coppery chestnut colts who remain as inseparably linked in lore as they were on the racetrack. You simply cannot mention one without the alliteratively named other: Affirmed and Alydar.

Theirs is an unrivaled rivalry that not only ennobled the pastime known as The Sport of Kings, but also transcended horse racing to hold an entire nation spellbound throughout their epic trilogy of Triple Crown duels. Around water coolers and water troughs in that magical spring of 1978, casual followers and confirmed railbirds alike could compare it only to the fiercest rivalry ever waged by two-legged athletes: the three-fight blood feud pitting Muhammad Ali against Joe Frazier for boxings heavyweight crown just a few years earlier.

These equine heavyweights squared off a staggering ten times in a span of merely fourteen months, and although Affirmed won the lions share of their confrontations, five were photo finishes decided by the blink of a shutter. After dueling four furious miles through the hardest fought of all Triple Crown series, Affirmed and Alydar were separated by a combined margin of under half a second. The Kentucky Derby may be hyped as the most exciting two minutes in sports, but the pairs electrifying stretch showdowns only kept intensifying through both remaining jewels, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. To cap it all off and become just the eleventh winner of the coveted Triple Crown, Affirmed had to outfight Alydar every hoofbeat of the way in what is deemed the greatest horse race ever runa cultural landmark that stamps the 1978 Belmont Stakes as the sports crowning glory. The rivalrys heart-stopping climax put an exclamation point on racings last Triple Crown coronation and a period on its bygone golden age.

THE INTERTWINED SAGA of Affirmed and Alydar is a study in contrasts as stark as David and Goliath. If Alydar and his human connections personify racing royalty, Affirmed and his crew embody every underdog outsider whos had to claw his way into the winners circle.

Alydar was born into Bluegrass aristocracy as the royally bred pride of Kentuckys Calumet Farm, the Thoroughbred dynasty that had reigned over The Sport of Kings in the same way the New York Yankees dominated the national pastime. Lucille Markey, the blue-blood heiress embraced as racings grand dame in her eighties, saw in Alydar a last chance to rescue her beloved Calumet. Desperate to restore her storied stables faded glory, she entrusted her strapping savior to a promising young trainer with a venerable pedigree of his own: John Veitch, himself a Lexington-born son of a Hall of Famer.

Affirmed, by contrast, was foaled and raised down in Florida, far removed from the sports old-money Kentucky home, at an upstart farm fueled by the new-money millions of a controversial Wall Street financier turned nouveau breeder. Lou Wolfson, an immigrant junk dealers son who pulled himself out of poverty as a pioneering corporate raider, saw in Affirmed a chance at personal redemption after a conviction for securities violations sent him to prison. He entrusted his lanky longshot to a charismatic trainer who like himself was a consummate outsider: Laz Barrera, a Cuban immigrant who climbed to the top from backstretch obscurity through his uncanny ability to coax and charm the most out of his horses.

With so much riding on both homebreds, the choice of jockeys epitomized the differing strategies employed by the opposing teams of rivals locked in a battle of wits and wills: Steve Cauthen, a child prodigy like none the sports world had ever seen, versus the wily veteran who had mentored him, Jorge Velasquez. For all Cauthens precocious fame as the first racing figure ever feted as Sport Illustrated s Sportsman of the Year, the teen sensation had yet to prove himself in the pressure cooker of any Triple Crown race. As celebrated as The Kid was when he began riding Affirmed as a seventeen-year-old phenom ranked the top athlete of 1977, the real stars of 1978 would be the entwined pair of three-year-old colts running as a team down the stretch and into historyforever together as they took their human connections and countless armchair jockeys along for the ride and the rivalry.

DESPITE THEIR SIMILAR chestnut coloring and their shared bloodlines as descendants of the great Native Dancer, Affirmed and Alydar boasted the kind of clashing styles and complementary personalities that fuel the most enduring rivalries. Off the track, the refined Affirmed was as relaxed and easygoing as the regal Alydar was macho and aggressive. On the track, their contrasting styles forged the equine equivalent of Ali the Boxer versus Frazier the Slugger. Affirmed, graceful and swift like Ali, was the classic frontrunner, gliding with the precision of a stopwatch and flicking his ears to alert his precocious jockey to an impending challenge, while Alydar, brawny and bullish like Frazier, was the classic stalker, gearing up to unleash his come-from-behind knockout punch. The classic confrontation was so close that it would all come down to one champions indomitable will to win.

Of all the fierce rivals joined together in the annals of sportfrom Ali-Frazier and Louis-Schmeling to Army-Navy and YankeesRed Soxno one-two combination is more tightly bound by a hyphen than Affirmed-Alydar. That alliterative exacta featured the perfect symbiotic relationship, each horse bringing out the best in the other. Which, of course, is the essence of any athletic competitionand any great rivalry. Imagine Ali without Frazier, Chamberlain without Russell, Magic without Bird, Nicklaus without Palmer, Evert without Navratilova, Affirmed without Alydar.